


Shattered Glass

by Wolfsong6913



Series: Never Meant To Be [1]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Developing Relationship, Explaining How This Happened, F/M, Falling In Love, I Don't Even Know Why I Like Them, but I do
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-27
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21575119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfsong6913/pseuds/Wolfsong6913
Summary: She was only sixteen years old, the first time she ever saw him.Her mother told her he'd break her heart.She couldn't stop herself even if she wanted to.
Relationships: Trisha Elric & Pinako Rockbell, Trisha Elric/Van Hohenheim
Series: Never Meant To Be [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1555792
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	1. Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> This story uses the characters and backgrounds developed in the 2003 FMA series. I wanted to show how Trisha and Hohenheim's relationship could have developed, seeing as they shared such an unusual, and unusually strong connection, despite Hohenheim's absence for so much of their time together. I hope you all enjoy!

She was only sixteen years old, the first time she ever saw him. He was standing beside Mary-Ann's fruit stall, turning apples and pears over in his hands. In the face of his long yellow hair and piercing golden eyes, Trisha felt incredibly muddy and dull. She edged nervously up beside him, and reached for her basket, which she had left balanced on top of the stall.

"Excuse me," she murmured. She grasped at the basket, feeling her fingers brush its rough weave. Her careless touch tipped the basket, and sent it tumbling, scattering its contents across the dirt, and knocking an apple out of his hand. Trisha sucked in a short gasp of shock. "I'm sorry!" she cried, dropping to her knees and frantically sweeping the fallen stems into a pile. "I'm so sorry, really - “  
She froze as two hands (huge, warm hands, hands that she loved, loves, will love) closed around her own, holding them gently in place.

"Don't worry about it," the man assured her. He hesitated for an instant, then released her hands and scooped up the fallen flowers between his own weathered palms. There was a brief flash of red light, and he was holding a small wreath of flowers out to Trisha. “Here - now they won’t fall apart if you drop them.” 

“Thank you,” she breathed, carefully taking the wreath from his outstretched hands. She tucked it up against her heart, and clutched it tight to her chest, breathless with the kindness of his actions. “Was - was that alchemy?” she breathed, still not quite daring to look up and meet his (brilliant, piercing, ancient) golden eyes. “We don’t get many alchemists here.”

He huffed gently, a laugh without enough air to come out properly (and oh, how she yearned to hear his laugh again, free and open like he never was). “I am an alchemist, of sorts,” he admitted. “I’m just passing through.” He rose to his feet, towering over her even when she followed suit. “You have a lovely town.”

Trisha bit her lip, looking shyly upwards, stopping short before her gaze could catch on anything higher than his chin. “Thank you,” she whispered.

For a long moment, they both stood there, not saying anything. Then Trisha felt the pads of his fingers brush her chin, and she caught her breath as he tilted her head up to meet his eyes (and they seared, they burned, they marked her straight down to her soul). He looked at her for a moment, then nodded as if he had seen what he wanted to see. 

“Pretty girls like you shouldn’t hide their faces,” he told her. “I hope you have a wonderful day, young lady.” He made as if to tip an imaginary hat, then turned to leave.

“Wait!”

Trisha felt all the blood in her body rush to her face at her bold impulsive statement, and for an instant, she just wanted to turn tail and run. But the man was looking at her, waiting for her to speak, and she had oh-so-foolishly spoken already.

“Do - Do you want to come to my house for tea?” she blurted out. “My mother has a spare room she sometimes rents out to travelers!”

Shocked at her own words, she quickly dropped her gaze, allowing her muddy-brown hair to obscure her face again. “Only if you want to, that is,” she amended. “I - I don’t want to force you.”

The sound of slow, hesitant footsteps crunching on gravel heralded his approach, but she did not look up until his hand cupped her chin again. The look in his eyes then made her breath catch in her throat, though she did not understand the (pain, age, sorrow, fear) maelstrom of emotions that swirled within. 

“I cannot stay for long,” he said gently. “But - I think I would love some tea.”

\---------------------------------

After tea, Trisha stood by the front door and watched him go, the bright blond brilliance of his hair visible a long ways down the road. She curled her fingers into the flowery wreath on her wrist and mouthed his name to his retreating back (a sight she saw more than she had ever wished).

_Hohenheim._

Her mother’s firm hand came down suddenly on her shoulder, and she jumped, surprised she had not noticed her approach. 

“I’ve been a teenager too,” her mother said sternly. “And I know that look on your face. Wipe those thoughts out of your head, girl. That’s a man who’d only ever break your heart.”

(And he did, over and over and over.)

 _And maybe he already has,_ Trisha thought, the wreath a weight pulling down her arm from her wrist.

And even late at night, tucked into her warm bed, she could still feel the weight of those golden eyes on hers.

When she was seventeen, he showed up at her door at midnight, dripping water from his coat and hair, and blood from the long, jagged cut that ran down the length of his right arm. Trisha, reveling in the freedom that came when her mother spent the night visiting away from home, was awake when he came, reading a book from the comfortable warmth of her fireplace. She nearly shrieked when a roll of thunder and flash of light illuminated the tall silhouette at her door, and her heart rate did not slow when she finally made out the features of his face.

“What happened?” (Where are, where have you been, when will you return?) she asked anxiously, bringing a basin of warm water, and a cloth to clean his wound. 

“I’m sorry,” he said instead, and for once, he is the one who does not meet her eyes. “I didn’t want to disturb you, but - “

“You’re always welcome here,” Trisha told him sternly. (And he is, forever and ever and ever) She wrapped his arm in white cloth, and if her fingers lingered a bit too long on his heated skin, he did not say a thing.

(In the morning, he is gone before she sees him, but there is a wreath of flowers sitting in front of the fireplace. She picks it up, breathes in the scent of the flowers, and wonders when she will see him again.)

In the summer before she turns eighteen, the answer, it appears, is frequently. She ran into him at the butchers, by the train station, at Mary-Ann’s stall where they first met. Their interactions are short and cordiel, and Trisha writes down every second in the notebook she keeps by her bed. Her mother sees the wreaths she brings into the house, and gives her stern looks, but says nothing. 

Trisha lives for those sweet, stolen moments with Hohenheim. She knows the grin that lights up her face when she sees him is like no other, and she knows he knows it too. He seems to seek her out, more and more often, and his face is a little softer every time. He laughed once, out loud, at something she said, and to her ears, the sound is like a million doves taking flight. 

On her eighteenth birthday, her friends drag her to the tavern across town, and they laugh and talk and drink until she is delightfully tipsy. Mary-Ann was going on about her dream to marry a train conductor, and to travel with him across Amestris when Trisha saw a flash of shining yellow cross the front of the tavern. 

“‘Scuse me,” she slurred, lurching to her feet. “I gotta - you know.” She jerked her thumb towards the door, and stumbled out without another word. Hohenheim is, as she has expected, standing across the street, nearly obscured by the shadows cast from the streetlamp above. She tottered across to join him. “Hey,” she giggled, leaning heavily against his arm. “Care to join us? It’s my birthday!”

“It is,” he agreed, but only looked down at her gently with those striking eyes.

“C’mon,” she laughed, tugging at his hand. “Let’s go!”

Struck by a sudden impulse, she stretched up on her toes and made to kiss him. He jerked away as if stung, and Trisha froze in a sudden burst of clear-headedness.

“I - “ she began, but found she had nothing to say.

“Trisha,” Hohenheim whispered. She looked up anxiously, met his eyes, and saw none of the light she had come to expect in them. It was (hidden, dulled, forced under) gone, and the chill that was left sent a shiver down her spine. 

“I can’t do this anymore, Trisha.”

“Do what?” Trisha forced lightness into her tone, confusion onto her face as she spoke. _Oh please, don’t say what I think you’re saying, don’t make it true_ (It was).

“You, Trisha, you and me. I - “

Trisha swallowed nervously, put her hand on his arm, above the scar, on the arm she had wrapped and banadaged herself (the storm raging outside, the fire crackling beside him, her fingers caressing his heated skin). “Hohenheim, _please -_ “

“Goodbye, Trisha,” he said, and before she could move, respond (was it me, was it something I did, come back, we can make it right,) he is gone, the gold of his hair quickly swallowed by the night. (Gone again, yet, still).

Trisha burns all her wreaths out in the yard the next day, a great conflagration of flame devouring wilted leaves and browned stems. Her mother watches from the window, silently, and brings her a bowl of her favourite soup and a handkerchief for her tears when she locks herself in her room to cry. (She does not say ‘I told you so’. A part of Trisha hates her for that, and another part hates her for being right.)

Trisha lives. She learns housekeeping from her mother, goes shopping at the market (though never from Mary-Ann’s fruit stall). She tried dating a couple of the village boys, but none of them had quite the same fire in their eyes (battered, unyielding, old), or the same gentle, fierce nature (she had seen him tenderly cradle a young kitten in his giant, rough palms, and later fend off a rampaging wild dog with those same hands).

Her mother died. Sickness, they said. Their neighbor, old lady Pinako was there, at the funeral with her son (Trisha’s age, she had never tried dating him, he was too much like a brother to her). Pinako took a puff of her pipe, the smoke and her short stature aging her beyond her years, and warned Trisha that what had killed her mother was likely hereditary. Trisha filed that away under ‘not useful right now’, and went back to the empty house - her house now. The vacant halls felt filled with ghosts, and she couldn’t decide who she wished she could see more - her mother, or Hohenheim. 

(That descion was made for her, in the end.)

She opened the door to a knock, and looked up. Her lips mouthed the name her heart would not let her pronounce, and she staggered back a pace in shock. 

“May I come in?” Honenhiem asked. He looked nervous, high strung, and he was wringing the hem of his coat between his hands.

“Of course,” (You’re always welcome here, why are you back, how dare you leave), Trisha finally whispered, and she stepped back to let him in. She grabbed two mugs and a pitcher of water from the kitchen, struggling to wrap her mind around Hohenheim’s reappearance. She moved back into the living room, set the water down on the table, joined him on the couch. “You’re back,” she whispered incredulously, her eyes taking in every inch of his appearance. “You finally came back.” _Why?_ Her heart whispered. (Always, never, forever).

“I’m sorry,” Hohenheim apologised, taking a mug of water and gripping it tightly in both hands. “I - I didn’t mean to - “

Trisha made a small, hurt noise, his words stabbing her straight in the chest. “You didn’t want to come back to me?”

“No! I - I mean - “ Hohenheim suddenly took a marked interest in the walls of the room around him. “It looks different in here,” he sidetracked rapidly. “Did your mother redecorate?”

“I did. My mother’s dead.”

The blunt admission hurt her to say, but something stirred inside when Hohenheim’s face immediately softened into lines of sympathy. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “She seemed like a great woman.”

“She was,” Trisha forced from around the lump in her throat. 

_He’s only going to break your heart._

“Why did you come back?” she asked again. “Why did you leave?”

He was silent for a long time, his eyes fixed on something she could not (would never) see.

“I couldn’t stop thinking of you,” he admitted, finally, quietly, his voice barely above a whisper. 

_A man like that, always coming and going._

Something warm and soft opened up in Trisha’s chest, a long-awaited release of pressure. “Is that why you left, or why you came back?” she asked softly, hardly able to bear the answer.

“Both,” he whispered.

_Get those thoughts out of your head, girl!_

Gently, Trisha leaned forward, and took the mug out of Hohenheim’s hands, setting it on the table where it belonged. She cupped Hohenheim’s cheek in her hand, feeling his rough stubble against her soft palms. He closed his eyes briefly, and Trisha moved closer to his side, and leaned in, and this time, he allowed her to kiss him.

After a moment, he pulled away, touching Trisha’s hand on his cheek, but not pushing it off (not yet).

“I - we - you shouldn’t,” he whispered hoarsely. “You can’t love me - I’ll break your heart.”

“I know,” Trisha whispered back, and for an instant, she was sure her eyes were as bright as his own (how she loved those eyes). “My mother told me years ago.”

He hesitated briefly, and she feared that she had lost him, but then he leaned forward again, and their second kiss was just as breathless and wonderful and life-changing as their first, and when it ended, Trisha found that she had shifted off the couch and was now straddling his lap.

“Stay with me?” she pleaded, not daring to look away from his burnished, blazing eyes. “At least for a little while?”

He closed his eyes, pain flashing through the lines of his face, but he folded her into his great, warm arms, and tucked her close to his chest, and his breath was warm in her ear as he whispered, “For as long as I can,”

(And of course, that will never be long enough.)


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not quite as happy with this section, but I wrote it, so I decided to post it anyway. Enjoy!
> 
> Also, don't ask me whether I'm using a FMA timeline or an FMAB timeline, because I don't know.

Trisha Elric is twenty one years old when she gives birth to their first child. 

He was a boy, strong and healthy, and born already screaming at the world. Pinako showed her how to hold him, feed him, and then she hurried back to her home. Her daughter in law was nearing term, and Trisha rejoiced at the fact that her son would have a playmate close to his own age. 

Hohenheim was the one who named him, Edward, a good, sturdy name. Trisha had wanted to call him something more exotic, more like his father, but Hohenheim insisted otherwise. (“Alright”, she had said, “but I get to name the next one,”, and pretended not to notice the shock and fear that flashed across his face.)

Fear - but at what? She saw the way Hohenheim’s wary, golden gaze slid away from Edward’s, how those ancient eyes avoided his bright, youthful ones, shining and clear in a way Hohenheim's had never been. She kept Edward close to her for a long time, until, finally, she’d had enough. She marched into the office where Hohenheim sat, engrossed in his books, and held Edward out towards him. 

“Hold him for me,” she (commanded, begged, pleaded,) said. “I need to go make dinner.”

Hohenheim’s head jerked up, his eyes widened, his hands curled into fists at his side. “No, I… I can’t - “ he began.

“He’s your son,” Trisha pleaded. “He wants you,” for sure enough, Edward was holding his hands out towards his father and kicking his legs. 

“I can’t,” Hohenheim said again.

“Why not?” she demanded, fingers curling, tightening, until Edward squeaked in alarm, and forced her to loosen her grip. 

“Because… Because…” Hohenheim bit his lip, turned back to his papers (she was losing him, she couldn’t lose him, where did he go when he looked like this?”

“Why?” she cried, loudly, firmly, (please, please answer me!)

“Because I’m afraid I might fail again!” He burst out. 

A crack pierced the length of Trisha’s aching heart at the words, words which confirmed her greatest fear (she wasn’t his first, Edward wasn’t his first, what else had he been hiding,) but she merely settled the boy in his lap and said, “Then this is your chance to succeed. You have to be there for him if you’re going to try.”

Edward gurgled happily, and tilted his head back, his bright, golden eyes meeting their counterpart’s above. He grasped at his father’s beard, and made happy noises in his throat, and Trisha could have sworn that Hohenheim’s eyes clouded over with tears before he wrapped the boy tightly in his arms like he was the most precious thing in the world. (And he was, for both of them.)

Alphonse Elric was born a mere eighteen months after his brother, with a name both pretentious and modern, to suit both his parents. To Trisha’s delight, Hohenheim allowed himself to dote on both his sons this time, cradling Alphonse when he cried (which was remarkably rare), and playing games with Edward when he threw a tantrum (which was far more common). They got a photo taken together, just the four of them, and for a time, whenever Trisha looked at it, they looked like a proper family. (an illusion, a facade, they could never go on like this) (and Trisha knew it).

They never got legally married. He never offered, and the one time she asked, the fear in his eyes (always present, never truly gone) grew so dark and deep (he didn’t let her out of his arms reach for a long time afterward) that she never brought it up again. But she called him husband, and he called her wife, and for now, that was all she wanted. (‘til death do us part, of course.)

Sometimes, of course, he had to leave. Research, he’d said once. An old friend she’d never heard of, that was another. Each lie broke her heart a little more (and that was okay, because he’d warned her, they’d all warned her, and it was her choice not to listen) and so she held their sons close and waved goodbye, and counted down the days until she saw him again (and the gaps were so much longer, each trip took him further away, she knew, and yet the letters were not enough).

She knew some secrets were best left buried, and the ones that clouded her Hohenheim’s eyes and weighed down his soul were some of those, but some days, it took all she had to not just grab a shovel and start digging.

“I’m sorry,” Hohenheim said again (and again, and again), laying next to her as she slept. “I’m sorry, Trisha. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she murmured, stretching sleepily, her outstretched hands grasping for her husband’s warmth. But her hands encountered only empty sheets and a vacant pillow, and she sat up with a gasp (it wasn’t a dream) and she ran to the window (please let it have been a dream) only to see his golden hair, swallowed by the night (his back, moving away from her, again and again and again) and she wanted to scream out his name, to make him turn, to come back, but their boys (golden hair, golden eyes, just like him) are asleep in their beds, and she can’t wake them, so she only mouths his name (Hohenheim, Hohenheim!) for long after he had vanished into the darkness. 

In the morning, the boys are all questions (where’s Daddy, where did he go, when will he be back?) and she can’t bring herself to look into Edward’s clear, golden eyes (Alphonse’s are darker, not quite the same, but filled with just as many memories). She takes them down to the market, where she finds her gaze frantically searching for a tall of head of shining yellow hair (Edward’s hand is clasped tight in her own) but the only thing she finds is Granny Pinako’s knowing eyes when she leaves the boys to play with Winry. She can hardly bear to meet the old lady’s piercing gaze (like and unlike Hohenheim’s own) and instead she makes her excuses and hurries back to her home, where she searches for something, anything, that might serve as an answer. 

She finds nothing (and maybe she is terrified of what the answer might be) but one thing she overlooked last night. A single wreath of flowers, sitting innocuously beside the bed. She picks it up, runs her fingers over the blossoms, breaths in the scent. (a mountain of wreaths, going up in roaring flames,). She has to fight back the impulse to throw it to the ground and smash it into pieces, this may be the last thing he will ever give her (he gave her their sons, and this time, she can’t burn all her memories away, he’ll always be there, in Edward’s eyes, in Alphonse’s tender heart.)

Trisha felt her heart cracking again, breaking open in a way it never had before (before he’d been there, he was her salve, her glue, even while he was also her hammer), and she closed her eyes and held the wreath close while tears dripped silently down her cheeks. 

Trisha Elric was twenty five years old when her heart was broken.

She lived for her sons.

She was twenty nine when she died.

**Author's Note:**

> Please comment and review! I love hearing what readers think of my stories! Don't be afraid to leave constructive criticism, do be afraid to leave rude and unhelpful anger.


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